Talk about video games, movies, music, news, and technology without wading through a thousand dumb kids and dozen exclamation points after each sentence. Try it out for a few days and remember what it's like to breathe Internet air without getting two lungs full of stupid.

Time Crisis 5 (Arcade) Coming in Mid-May to D&B

It's coming to D&B locations in mid-May. Time Crisis 5's 3-stage version here seems awfully short (a 10'09 clear time, really?) but the True Mastermind Edition should fix that when it takes TC5 to a total of 6 stages. It seems that the gun will be black on the US version this time and may be slightly heftier.

One downside is that so far it doesn't introduce any new side antagonists. None of the boss battles really look epic yet, save for the HACS and the huge A-0940 style armored vehicle. TC4 has some pretty good boss battles, especially the Jack Mathers (stage 2) one. At least there is a Hard Mode available.

The Multi Screen Battle is gone. YMMV there, but I didn't mind it in TC4. Guess Namco decided it wasn't necessary with a 2-pedal system.

Wild Dog has an unexpected new ally who says he's good for something after all. Is there a traitor in the VSSE? Sure seems like it, and Robert Baxter's TC2 partner Keith Martin is under suspicion.

This is running on Namco's System ES3, so I'm surprised they didn't go more wild. But anyway PS4 should handle this with no trouble and probably even better graphics. When the time comes for a PS4 port, hopefully Namco takes the TC3 approach to extra content (Rescue Mission FTW) instead of trying an FPS mode like TC4.

TBQH I like Wild Dog's voice better in TC3 (Scott McCulloch) & TC4 (Dave Mallow). The new voice is just silly. Hopefully they'll catch enough shit on this to merit a redub for TME. The 3 added stages need to be longer than the first set- I think a total average clear time of 25 minutes wouldn't be bad.

Wild Dog going down in 20 seconds.

Need to work on this shooting technique myself. The HACS boss in stage 1-2 is a good place to practice.

When TC4 came out, I'll admit the graphics on that one did look old to begin with. Maybe a bit above PS2 thanks to System Super 256, but definitely below the OG Xbox/Sega Chihiro. Not ugly graphics, but it's no wonder the PS3 version got a visual overhaul. OTOH I don't think TC5 looks sub-PS3, actually. I've played and finished it, and the graphics probably fall just under PS4 level. It runs at 60 FPS save for a rare stutter (maybe once or twice in a full playthrough I've seen that).

The guns are dark blue like the MGs on the USA Razing Storm release, not black. Still better than the pink/blue ones found on TC3 though.

One glaring fault I've been told about: in stage 3, during areas 1 & 2 it is actually possible to shoot JUST ONE ENEMY and then cover until the checkpoint to get 100% accuracy resulting in a 100,000 bonus. That's mighty broken.
And sometimes there's lag as you try to get to cover. Aggravating when the crisis sightings are faster than in TC4.

HZH1987, who posted this replay from his friend LEO's game, said "Violence doesn't cause deaths. Lag does."
The last death vs. the boss was fucking bullshit, because it was due to lag. LEO should've been able to avoid that.

TC5 does need some fixes, and I hope Namco is listening to players as they work on the True Mastermind upgrade. The game's 8 minute or less clear time is not the only issue. That lag must be fixed.

Seriously, I think the machine gun isn't worth jack most of the time. I've seen HZH & LEO take the seekers out with a grenade and a few shotgun rounds. That works beautifully... far better than using machine gun as you're told to do. I think a fast handgun is better than the MG, especially against the HACS and the quadruped armor vehicle (but when you're close to the QAV, use shotgun for the turrets until it runs out).

Got a 1CC. 6'52 clear time? WTF.

Finally, I've 1CCed this. Not a 1LC yet though.

1.57M, 6'52" clear time, and 55% accuracy.

There was just one spot where I really used the machine gun- the smoke grenade scene in stage 1 area 3. The red soldiers were nailed just as they came out. The MG is good here, but leave it alone for the rest of this stage and stage 3. Stage 1 ended with 800,000 points, with a bit over 300,000 coming from the stage clear time bonus.

Here's a video from the Japanese TC5. Wild Dog's voice acting is way better in this one, not clownish. The VA for the English version should've tried for this sort of sound.

The "shoot one" exploit for areas 3-1 and 3-2 is sadly true, BTW. The two trucks that you see in 3-2 will eventually wreck if left alone. If you do this in 3-2, be sure you don't miss a shot on the chopper target event. In TC3's jeep battle, you needed to shoot all enemies to move on. This motorcycle battle is strictly on rails.

One attempt earlier was ruined by some stutters/freezes. Sometimes you can get through a game without this happening. Or it may happen once. Even worse, that time I had it happen several times in a row during stage 2 area 1. WTF?

Now a clear time of 6'52" says that TC5 is a little too short. Someone playing TC4 would probably be in the early part of stage 2 when you finish TC5. I'm guessing it'll come out to TC2 length when the upgrade is applied.

Sure seems like the True Mastermind Edition has been released.

On Youtube, I saw a couple of videos with "Time Crisis 5 Mastermind ending" in the titles, which are cut scenes not found in the original 3 stage TC5. That can only mean one thing: that the True Mastermind edition is ready.

One of them reveals the identity of VSSE's traitor. It's NOT Keith Martin...

WARNING: These videos contain serious spoilers so I did not use the youtube tags. #1 is the ending, and #2 is a cut scene before the final battle.

Here's a good 1.7M playthrough on video of the original TC5 (not by me, however). One thing this guy does is to repeatedly switch the pedal to delay the combo timer. I've beaten his stage 1 score (my record there is 930k) but he catches up on stage 2, saving his hit count by using the above trick. You can't combo for shit in stage 3, with the exception of Wild Dog. And BTW, the two trucks in stage 3-2 are simply allowed to wreck (like I said... it saves accuracy).

I feel it may not be worth it to try for combo count in stage 1. Just wreck everything as quick as you can.